Missing
by YoukoRei
Summary: An explanation for Bobby’s statements to Kurt in Uncanny 416. It’s tough to lie to yourself.


**Title:**  Missing****

**Author:** YoukoRei (Chrissy Taylor)****

**Summary:**  An explanation for Bobby's statements to Kurt in Uncanny 416.  It's tough to lie to yourself.****

**Warnings:** Angst, beautiful angst.****

**Author's Note:**  Wrote this after a little "Bobby, what are you saying" moment in UXM 416.  Those of you who've read it will know what I mean.  Those of you who haven't don't really need to.  It's pretty good as a stand alone.****

**Disclaimer:**  Marvel,  all belongs to Marvel.

**C&C:** As always, appreciated.

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Silence.

Finally, a moment alone.  Solitude found in a quickly darkening bedroom.  I happen to catch my image in the mirror on top of my dresser.

Somehow, something's missing.  I stare for a long while, trying to analyze the angles of my face.

Don't laugh.  It's not that difficult to become transfixed by your own reflection.  I've found myself trapped in the cold, reflective surface many times before.  Each time, I'm amazed.

So inaccurate.  So false.  A living mask.

I smile, trying to make the gesture seem genuine, but the emotion stops short of my eyes.  Ultimately, it doesn't really matter.  None of us look that deep anymore anyway.

These haunted expressions aren't something that you try to talk about around here.  Everyone has pain; each one of us is trapped in a different level of hell.  We've all learned that war wounds, no matter how deep and no matter how old, still amount to the same thing: scars that never go away.

We used to try to talk about things, the five of us.  I remember late night discussions in a dimly lighted room, the radio playing softly in the background.  Most of the times, the conversations were filled with laughter and hope, a naïve attempt at healing injuries that started out as superficial.  

Sometimes, when Jean wasn't there to scold us, Scott, Warren, Hank and I would exchange battle stories like parading peacocks, embellishing each tale with false bravado.  All of us sitting around the fireplace and talking about war as if we were veterans.  As if we were superheroes… 

The longer we played the game, however, the harder it got to put pieces back together.  In some ways, we grew closer to each other; at the same time, other things pushed us away.

I remember how arguments began to replace conversations.  Each one of us was guilty of pulling away from the others.  Each one of us believed at some point that there was no way that our teammates could understand the things we'd experienced.  We were stupidly trying to compare things that should never be compared.

Pain is pain is pain.  Why couldn't we see that then?  

We each became consumed by our own failures and dark experiences while resenting anyone else for letting the same happen to them.  There were nights when not a word would pass between any of us.  

Those silences killed.

Shaking off the deceptive pull of old memories, I rise slowly and painstakingly begin to remove my uniform.  

Sometimes, I don't know why I wear anything else.  In less than twenty-four hours I always end up in the damn thing again.  A dance of futility, I suppose.  An attempt to be normal.  An effort to maintain the hope that one day I won't have to change anymore.

"Only in death," I murmur, sarcasm dripping from my words.  The sound of my own voice shatters the silence and startles me.  I look around and my eyes unfailingly meet their counterparts in the mirror. 

Life with each other eventually became a dramatic production with each person playing their assigned part.  We constructed roles that we put into place each morning when we woke up.  They became intricate and interwoven, but always predictable.  

That predictability translated into security.  That security masked the bitter edge of insanity and despair that always seemed to lurk in our shadows.

As long as Scott was the responsible leader…  As long as Jean was the gentle matriarch…  As long as Warren was the cocky playboy… As long as Hank was the charming scientist…  As long as I was the joker…  Things would be okay.

Whenever it got to be too difficult to keep up with the pomp and circumstance, we would run away, claiming our right to solitude and wrapping ourselves up in our pity and doubts.  We didn't want anyone to see what was behind the mask.

Honestly, no one else wanted to see it, either.  It was too much of a reminder of how easily we could be broken.

I try to rub the pounding that seems to have taken up residence behind my temples.

And now?  Where do we stand now?  Years have passed since those late night conversations around the radio.

But, hey, time can't change true friendship.  The five of us have known each other forever, right?  We were the original X-men.  Xavier's kids: saving the world before bedtime.  We know more about each other than anyone else could ever hope to.  Always the best of friends…

My eyes snap open and I glare at the stupid man before me.

"Who are you kidding, Bobby?"

I don't know these people anymore.  I don't know them, and they don't know me.  At some point, we lost each other.

At some point, we lost.

And for the first time in a long time, a feel the hot sting of tears threaten to blind me.  The ache of their absence becomes a clenching physical pain in my chest, making it hard to breathe.

I flop down on my bed, burying my face in my pillow.  It's silly.  I'm ashamed to be crying.  A grown man.  An X-man.  

But pain is pain is pain.

And not a lot that I've gone through compares to this void.  Not Opal, not Emma, not my dad… 

"Not even business calculus."  I laugh bitterly through my tears.  Even now, I slip back into my part as Bobby Drake, Iceman Extraordinaire.  I fall back, grasping, trying to find that old stability.

No one's there to answer me.

Pretending doesn't bring them back.  Crying doesn't bring them back.  Fighting by their sides again doesn't bring them back.

Even being here in the same house, we're all too far apart now.

And silence kills.

_~fin~_


End file.
